Management expected the union to fold right about now; they haven't, and now they're stuck without a serious long-term contingency plan for a lockout that might run into the winter.

His final prediction should hearten gutless CBCphobes across the land, unlikely though its fulfillment be:

If management continues to stubbornly stick to their bricks and mortar industrial relations strategy, the CBC will slowly bleed to death over coming months.

If Hockey Night in Canada and the Winter Olympics don't force an agreement, an election will. Management and union may detest each other, but they both hate the Conservative Party even more. The fear of a root-and-branch reorganization of the CBC will end the lockout in a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, agreement has been reached on about a dozen side issues, although no word about casualization--the salary cap of the CBC lockout, the issue on which both sides would rather see a season cancelled than give ground on.

A closing thought about the lockout programming on campus radio stations: why are CBC broadcasters the only ones that have been so favoured?

If private broadcasters were unionized and locked out by their station management, would campus stations be so quick to give them a home during their lockouts? Imagine how many more people would miss Humble and Fred as miss Andy Barrie's morning program. Or Ottawans who enjoy listening to Lowell Green on CFRA on weekday mornings. Somehow I can't imagine CIUT or CIUO being so generous to them.